


I'm Missing You (and it Shows)

by Kacka



Series: Kacka Does a Thing [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Exes, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 08:24:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9170683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: Clarke knows that Bellamy would never ask for the help he needs, especially not from his ex-girlfriend. Which is why she doesn't really give him the chance to say no.





	

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from buffys-boss on tumblr!

 

The first time she sees him After, they’re standing in the cereal aisle at the grocery store.

She almost doesn’t approach him, but it’s been almost three weeks since they broke up and she misses him like crazy. She’d been sure that Bellamy was it. She still is.

He sees her right before she reaches him and straightens with a cautious expression on his face. It hasn’t been long enough she thinks he should really look _that_ different, but it’s obvious he’s been under stress. At least, it is to her. He’s wearing the sweatpants he only pulls out when he’s sick, his scruff is uneven, and his hair-- well, it’s as untended as ever, but it hangs over his eyes and curls under his ears like it doesn’t know what to do with itself. Like it’s maybe trying to shelter him from the world.

She used to cut it, she remembers with a pang. Their freshman year of college, she’d gotten tired of looking at the raggedy mess and pushed him down into a chair to give him a trim. He’d let her, glad to save the money, and it became their thing over the years.

Okay, so they had lots of things-- bickering, pale ales, horror movies, being the only ones in their friend group who liked olives on their pizza. But the hair cutting was their _first_ thing, and now it’s the most obvious sign that they’ve truly broken up.

“Let me guess,” he says, his voice exactly how she remembers it. “Cocoa Puffs?”

“Let me guess-- you don’t think chocolate is a breakfast food.” Her eyes fall to the box in his hands and her heart clenches. So many changes in such a short time. “Or maybe you do.”

“It’s for O,” he explains, dropping the box in his cart. “I’m compromising.”

“How’s she doing?”

It’s easier to ask after his sister than to ask after him, and he seems to feel the same way as he answers, his shoulders loosening.

“It’s pretty rough right now. Even when we were growing up, it’s not like she really saw me as a parental figure, you know? But she’s been acting up at school and I feel like I have to set some boundaries…”

He trails off and Clarke nods knowingly. “So the Cocoa Puffs are you picking your battles.”

“Pretty much.” He looks her over and wets his lips. “How are you?”

 _I’m an open wound_ , she wants to say. But she knows the weight that rests on his shoulders, this burden he insisted upon carrying alone, and doesn’t want to add to it. So she smiles small, the expression feeling grotesque for all its necessity, and says, “I’m doing just fine.”

* * *

The six months she and Bellamy dated were some of the best of her life.

It wasn’t love at first sight; they’d gradually grown together over years of highs and lows and everything in between. She loved him long before their relationship ventured into the romantic, and she’s certain she’ll love him long after this breakup.

Part of what keeps her holding on to her feelings for him is that she knows he didn’t want it to end either. But his mother got arrested and he ended up with custody of his thirteen-year-old sister, and he needed his life to revolve around her for a while. For maybe the next five years, even.

She knows-- both from inference, knowing Bellamy better than she knows herself, and from what she saw during that cereal aisle run-in-- that he’s sacrificing so much to make sure he gets to keep Octavia. That he’s doing all he can to talk her down from the trouble she gets into, that he’s picking up every available shift to make ends meet. That in addition to cutting out his personal life (Clarke and his other friends with it), he’s also cut out his gym membership, sold off part of his rare book collection, given every part of himself that he can.

That, ultimately, is why she finds herself at his front door not two days later, arms laden with tote bags and another forced smile on her face.

“Clarke.” He’s startled to see her, but not unhappy, she thinks.

 _He wanted to keep seeing you_ , she tells herself. _He just didn’t feel like he could._

“Hey, hope I’m not interrupting anything.” She holds the bags up. “Can I come in?”

“Uh-- Sure.”

The place is more of a mess than usual. In the corner, there’s a stack of boxes overflowing with his mom’s stuff. Bellamy took in all of her belongings for the duration of her sentence, his sister included. Clarke can hardly see the couch beneath the mountain of laundry waiting to be folded, and a very fine layer of dust coats every surface in sight.

Which isn’t so bad, except Clarke knows how sensitive Blake allergies are to dust mites.

“What’s going on?” He asks, still standing helplessly in the entryway.

“You’re going to go take a shower. No offense, but you kind of stink. And when you get out, I’m going to give you a haircut.”

“But--”

“You need both for job interviews anyway,” she points out before his protest can go much further. “It’s worth taking an hour off for. Where’s your sister?”

“In her room.”

“She probably needs a haircut too, right?”

He hesitates, but finally admits, “Probably.”

“Okay, so you go make yourself clean and I’ll do her first.”

For a moment, all he can do is blink. She’s so sure he’s going to argue, going to insist he doesn’t need her telling him how to live his life, but he must see how ready she is to have this fight because all he does is grab a clean towel and head for his room.

Clarke knocks on Octavia’s door.

“What, Bell?”

“It’s not Bellamy. Can I come in?”

There’s a moment of quiet, then the shuffling of feet and the door swinging open. Octavia crosses her arms over her chest, glaring at Clarke for reasons beyond her ability to fathom.

“What are you doing here?”

“Haircuts,” Clarke says, equally blunt and cool. “You want one?”

Octavia’s eyes narrow. “I thought you and my brother broke up. He’s been all mopey.”

Clarke does not allow hope balloon inside her chest. She already knew he didn’t want the breakup; that doesn’t change that his situation won’t allow for anything else right now.

“We ran into each other at the grocery store,” she says honestly. “He looked like he could really use one, and I know you guys are tight on money so I thought I’d offer my services.”

“You offered?” Octavia repeats, dubious. “And he took you up on it?”

“I didn’t phrase it so much as a question.” Clarke raises her eyebrows. “You want me to do yours while he’s in the shower, or not? Clean up your split ends?”

There’s a beat while Octavia considers, but then she shrugs, drops her fighting stance. “I guess so.”

Bellamy emerges about halfway through Octavia’s hair, a fresh, clean scent hanging around him and his t-shirt sticking to his skin in places Clarke doesn’t let herself think about.

“How does it look so far?” Octavia asks. She’s sitting on a chair in the middle of their kitchen, a towel wrapped around her shoulders like a cape. Bellamy smiles at her and steals one of the oranges Clarke brought.

“Pretty much exactly the same.”

“But healthier,” Clarke amends, running her fingers through the strands.

“But exactly the same,” Bellamy repeats. Octavia sticks her tongue out at him.

“We’re doing the ends pink next time.”

He freezes. Clarke carefully does not look at him. “Next time?”

“She didn’t have dye with her today.”

“I have Wednesdays off this rotation,” Clarke says, eyes trained on the scissors in her hand. “I figured if she wants pink tips, I can help make that happen.”

He stares at her for a moment, jaw muscle jumping, then feigns nonchalance with a shrug. “The pink will wash out eventually, right?”

“Right.”

“Then I don’t see why not.”

When Octavia finishes, she and Bellamy swap places. He starts talking his sister through dinner prep, too distracted to notice the way Clarke’s hands falter before sliding into his damp curls.

They’re so soft she never wants to stop touching them. She circles around to the front, comparing the sides, and the way he peers up at her through his lashes is almost enough to turn her to liquid. She returns to the back of his head, only to find the breadth of his shoulders equally distracting.

They don’t speak. He continues instructing Octavia, critiquing her form as she cuts up the vegetables, and exasperatedly informing her where she can find the pots and pans.

“It’s like this is brand new information.” Clarke jolts when she realizes he’s addressing her and not his sister. She’d zoned out a little, listening to the comforting, familiar cadence of his voice. “You’d think she never cooked in this kitchen before.”

“Don’t look at me,” she says lightly. “I’m not one to throw stones about someone else’s cooking.”

“True.”

“See, Bell?” Octavia crows. “I can still be an upstanding citizen and not know how to cook.”

“Is that what you tell her?” Clarke asks, amused. “Did you forget that you cooked for me, like, once a week since college?”

He pauses. “No, I didn’t forget.”

Octavia makes a face into the silence that follows, and that snaps Clarke out of it. She runs her fingers through his hair one last time and steps back, injecting false cheer into her voice when she says, “Okay, you’re all done. Where’s your vacuum cleaner?”

“You don’t have to--” Bellamy starts. At the same time, Octavia says, “Hall closet.”

“I don’t mind,” Clarke insists, brushing past him. “Go rinse off the back of your neck so it doesn’t start itching. I’ve got this.”

When she’s done vacuuming the hair off the kitchen linoleum, she does a cursory sweep of the hall, and then the living room. Like dusting, it’s probably a chore that has fallen off Bellamy’s radar in the last month or so.

After that’s finished, she grabs the Clorox wipes from one of her bags and starts in on Bellamy’s bookshelf. She’s moved to the TV by the time he sticks his head in from the kitchen.

“What are you doing now?” He asks, face ashen.

“If you have to ask me that, it’s clearly been too long since you dusted,” she mutters, scrunching her nose when she pulls the cloth away dirty.

“Is Clarke staying for dinner?” Octavia calls. Bellamy winces.

“No pressure,” he says, too quiet for his sister to overhear. “But you’re welcome to stay.”

She swallows and nods once. His returning smile is soft and sort of sad, but he ducks back into the kitchen before she can read anything further into it.

They catch up a little over the meal. Clarke tells him about the new things happening at her job and Octavia tells her about the new school she started when Bellamy took her in. He doesn’t add much about his own life, mostly, she thinks, because he’s not as secure or happy as he’d like to be professionally, and has no personal life to speak of.

He’s in a hard place, and as much as he loves his sister, he can’t share that with her. Can’t unload on her. So Clarke adds one last item to her list of things to do before she leaves.

After dinner Octavia excuses herself to do homework and Clarke insists upon washing dishes.

“Haven’t you given us enough charity for one day?” Bellamy asks, but he sounds more tired than offended.

“When have you ever cooked that I didn’t offer to wash dishes?” She points out, swatting his hand when he reaches to help dry. “I’ve got this. Go fold a sheet or something.”

Instead of following her directions-- which he’s been doing all afternoon; it’s honestly a wonder he lasted this long-- he lingers in the kitchen, wiping down the table, cleaning things out of the refrigerator, making lunches for himself and his sister for the next day.

“How are you really doing?” Clarke asks, voice low enough not to carry.

“I’m alright.” There’s a pause in which she pointedly doesn’t respond and sure enough, he continues. “I’m totally exhausted. You know I love Octavia more than I’ve ever loved-- almost anyone else. I’d do anything for her. It’s just hard. A lot harder than I expected.”

“And you pretty much always expect the worst, so that’s really saying something.”

“Yeah.” He laughs humorlessly. There’s a moment when all she can hear is the sloshing of the suds in the sink but then he adds, “And I miss the hell out of you.”

She drops her plate into the water.

When she turns around, he’s standing close, watching her intently.

“I miss you too,” she admits, unable to look away. “I’m glad you let me in today, but I wish you hadn’t shut me out in the first place.” The look on his face is heartbreaking and she pushes forward to add, “I don’t have any expectations about us, Bellamy. I just want to be here for you.”

“I want you here with me all the time. And today was honestly-- It was nice to feel like I could depend on someone else again.” He blinks fast, reeling his emotion back in. “But I’m just being selfish. It’s too much to ask of you.”

“I’d rather do this than not have you in my life at all.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t believe you when you say that _this_ is what you want. To have to work around my schedule all the time. For the things we do together to be chores and taking care of my sister. You’re not my housekeeper, Clarke.”

“I’m your g-- I’m your _friend_ ,” she corrects herself quickly. “I know what I’m signing up for, Bellamy.”

“That’s what I thought too, but what I knew didn’t begin to scratch the surface.”

“Because you’ve never had to do it all on your own before.” She takes a step forward, putting herself so close she can feel his chest rise and fall with his breathing. “And you don’t have to now. Can’t we at least try?”

For a moment, he just looks at her. But then he leans in, one of his hands cradling her face, and that’s all it takes to be kissing him. She laughs softly when he draws back, because he only goes far enough to nuzzle into her shoulder, pulling her into a hug.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then?” She says, clutching him tight.

His lips press against her neck when he nods. “I want to try. It just doesn’t feel fair to you.”

“What’s really unfair is making that decision for me,” she says lightly, nosing at his ear. There’s no resentment there. It’s just a fact. She knows that as terrible as the past month has been for her, it’s been worse for him.

He was willing to make himself miserable to save her from his life. She can’t be angry at him for that, even if she disagrees with him.

“Breaking up was the worst,” he says, muffled into her skin.

“Agreed. Let’s never do it again.”

His lips turn up into a full smile at that, and he presses a kiss to her temple before releasing her.

“Fine by me.”

**Author's Note:**

> part of [me doing a thing](http://katchyalater.tumblr.com/post/155005909253/hello-internets-i-hope-youre-having-lovely). if you still want to submit a request, you have two days left to do so, all i ask is that you be patient with me as i work to fill them!


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